My mother is a very literal person so I have promised her that I will add a note to say that these little pillows of starchy delight (purple prose alert - abort, abort!!!) are actually more gnocchi than pierogi. To me the finished dish tastes close to pierogi. I just close my eyes and think of Mother Russia (saving England and closed eyes for other circumstances - haha). It really is best to enjoy the food and thank the Kitchen Gods in passing that I didn't have to make the real version.
I only made pierogi from scratch once, in high school. My beloved grandmother gave me her recipe and I spent an entire afternoon making the dough, making the filling, rolling out the dough, cutting out rounds of dough, filling the rounds of dough, rolling the remainder scraps of dough out again, cutting out more rounds, making more filling because I didn't have enough, etc. etc. Just from having to read this paragraph I am sure that you can feel my pain...
This culinary project was for a dinner party that I was catering for my parents and the pierogi were going to be the first course. At the appropriate time, I boiled all 100 (yes) of them up, put them in a huge bowl for the "wow" factor, topped them with oodles of sour cream and butter-fried onions and appeared in the dining room to cries of appreciation from the 12 people sitting around the table.
I returned to the kitchen, got the next course organized, realized that I had not even tasted one of the fruits of my endeavors and appeared in the dining room in order to cadge one. To my horror, and this was maybe 8 minutes after I had put the huge bowl down on the table, THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE ONE LEFT. I have not made from-scratch pierogi since.
I do make this recipe from time to time. The results taste most authentic when topped with sour cream and fried onions but in our family we like them with sour cream and roughly chopped kimchee.
250g container ricotta 2 cups flour 2 tsps salt 2 tsps white pepper 1 whole egg 2 egg yolks Mix all ingredients together to form a dough. I found that a hand worked much better than a fork. Refrigerate the dough for several hours. Boil a large pot of salted water. Workng with 1/4 of the dough at a time, snip the dough with scissors into bite sized pieces and place on a board as you snip. Uneven pieces will make the finished dish look rustic and homemade. You will need to flour the board as well as roll the cut pieces in flour; they will be a bit sticky. (To give you a general idea, I made pieces about the size of 1/2 a kumquat; the cheat's pierogi will double in size when cooked). Put the pierogi in the boiling water and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain well. Serve with the topping of your choice.
I have been thinking of adapting the recipe and adding mashed potatoes to the mix for an even more pierogi-esque taste. Stay tuned for that recipe should I get it right!
Recipe adapted from about food.come, here.